Have we reached the limits of monetary policy? No. The central banks’ medicine cabinet is still full. Yet using the old treatments more aggressively or using altogether new treatments creates political, financial and economic risks. Worse, such action cannot solve some of the bigger difficulties the high-income economies confront. In an ideal world, therefore, monetary policy, should not remain “the only game in town”, as the title of a book by the economist and investment manager Mohamed El-Erian suggests it now is. Unfortunately, we do not live in an ideal world. In the real world, central banks must remain our doctors of choice.
我們已到達貨幣政策的極限了嗎？沒有。中央銀行的藥箱仍是滿滿的。不過，更激進地使用舊療法，或者使用全新療法，都會產生政治、金融和經濟風險。更糟糕的是，這麼做無法解決高收入經濟體面對的一些更大的難題。因此，在理想世界中，貨幣政策不應繼續是「唯一的選擇」（經濟學家、投資經理穆罕默德•埃爾-埃利安(Mohamed El-Erian)所著《唯一的選擇》(The Only Game in Town)的書名暗示，當前情形恰恰如此）。遺憾的是，我們並非生活在理想的世界裏。在現實世界中，央行必須繼續充當我們的首選醫生。